Low-quality sleep in patients with insomnia is closely related to sleep architecture imbalance and neurotransmitter impairment. Acupuncture may reduce the duration of light sleep and its proportion

increase the time of deep sleep and rapid-eye-movement sleep as well as their proportions so as to modulate the sleep architecture for insomnia. The paper summarized the related studies of acupuncture for improving sleep architecture through regulating serotonin

norephinephrine

dopamine

γ-aminobutyric acid

acetylcholine and orexin; and explored the effects of acupuncture on the neurotransmitters and their specific performance in regulating sleep architecture. It is anticipated that the review may provide the literature evidences of acupuncture for improving sleep quality in patients with insomnia

and the approaches to the mechanism research of acupuncture for regulating sleep architecture.